A brief thread on the life, religion, and language of Omar ibn Sa’id, author of the only known Arabic-language autobiography of an enslaved person in the United States.

Today is the 130th anniversary of the #WoundedKneeMassacre. On December 29, 1890, the 7th Cavalry surrounded a peaceful encampment of Lakota with Hotchkiss guns and slaughtered ~300. They were mostly women and children.

Those killed at Wounded Knee were led by Mniconjou Chief Spotted Elk, who was ill. Many were followers of Hunkpapa Chief Sitting Bull who was assassinated 14 days prior. They were invited to seek refuge with Oglala Chief Red Cloud at Pine Ridge. They were hungry, tired & cold.

The soldiers weren’t satisfied with gunning down the encampment. They chased down those who escaped, including little children & their grandmothers, for miles. Some ran all the way back to the Cheyenne River Reservation, through the night in the freezing cold, with bullet wounds.

Charles Eastman, the 1st western educated Oceti Sakowin (Dakota Sioux) physician, was at Pine Ridge during the #WoundedKneeMassacre. It was right after Christmas. A banner hanging over the wounded said, ‘Peace on Earth.’ The horrors Dr. Eastman saw that day changed him forever.

Those massacred at Wounded Knee were callously thrown into a mass grave. Soldiers proudly posed for photos with their corpses. They were awarded Medals of Honor for their part in the slaughter. Those Medals have never been rescinded, despite public outcry.

Would you like to live in a UFO? Well in 1968 you could, thanks to Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. He created the Futuro House and for a while it was a worldwide sensation!

Let's take a look around...

The Futuro was a round prefabricated house initially designed as a ski chalet. Quick to build and easy to heat it reflected the optimism of the times.

Inside the spacious Futuro were all the 1960s mod cons: a central cooker/heater, reclining chairs, funky furniture and cool, crisp lines. Did it have shagpile carpets? Of course it did!

The Futuro was made of fibreglass- reinforced polyester and was light enough to be towed to any location. You literally moved house.

But its futuristic design caused an immediate backlash: Futuro houses were banned from many municipalities by zoning regulations because they didn't 'blend in' with the environment. Production was halted in the mid 1970s.

Charles Ponzi and the Postal Service

The story of the man who put the 'Ponzi' in 'Ponzi scheme'

/THREAD/

1/ Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, a.k.a. Charles Ponzi, was an italian swindler and con-artist.

Born in 1882 in Italy, he became notorious for his money-making fraudulent schemes in North America in the 1920s.

2/ He arrived in Boston in late 1903 with $2.50 in his pocket.

After many professional failures, he moved to Montreal in 1907 and started working as a bank teller at Banco Zarossi, where he rose to the position of bank manager.

3/ This is where he first witnessed the bank's scheme, where Zarossi was funding interest payments using deposits from newly opened accounts instead of investment profits.

4/ Ponzi served 3 years in jail for check forgery and returned to the US after his release.

However, he got involved in smuggling illegal immigrants into the country landing in prison for another 2 years, moving back to Boston after that.

Buckle up, everyone, this story is *wild*.

The 62-year-old Dyatlov Pass mystery, in which nine students died at the hands of an unknown force, has likely been solved thanks to the movie Frozen and gruesome car crash experiments.

Me, for @NatGeo + thread!

In what has become known as the Dyatlov Pass incident, ten members of the Urals Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg—nine students and one sports instructor who fought in World War II—headed into the frigid wilderness on a skiing expedition on January 23, 1959. 1/x

One student turned back after experiencing joint pain.

He never saw his friends again.

2/x

The team made camp on February 1, pitching a large tent on the snowy slopes of Kholat Saykhl, whose name can be interpreted as “Dead Mountain” in the language of the region’s Indigenous Mansi people. Ominous, sure - but these were experienced mountain hikers. 3/x

The nine were never heard from again.

When a search team arrived at Kholat Saykhl a few weeks later, the tent was found just barely sticking out of the snow, and it appeared cut open from the inside. The next day, the first of the bodies was found near a cedar tree. 4/x

Do u know about the Diamond known as The Eye of Brahma?

The Eye of Brahma also known as Black Orlov is 7th largest black diamond in the world of Indian origin. It weighs 67.50carats(13.500 g).The diamond was originally 195carats(39.0g)&was discovered in early 19th century India.

The Black Orlov featured as one of the eyes in a statue of the Hindu god Brahma in Puducherry. One night a European Jesuit priest who asked for refuge inside the temple, took advantage of the generosity, plucked and looted the diamond out of the idol's eyes.

It is said after this incident the diamond became cursed.

In 1932, diamond dealer J. W. Paris reportedly took the diamond to the United States, and soon after committed suicide by jumping from a skyscraper in New York City.

Later owners of the diamond included two Russian princesses, Leonila Galitsine-Bariatinsky and Nadia Vygin-Orlov (after whom the diamond is named). Both women allegedly jumped to their deaths in the 1940s.

The diamond was later bought by Charles F. Winson, and cut into three pieces in an attempt to break the curse; the 67.5-carat Black Orlov was set into a brooch of 108 diamonds, suspended from a necklace of 124 diamonds.